Let’s promote the school zone we love

and the Kanazawa of which we are proud

– through communication with the local community and with the world –

Objective

We provide opportunities over the six years of elementary school for the students to focus on themselves and family, friends, people in the local community, and the culture and industry of their hometown and realize how wonderful they are, and come to a different understanding of that wonderfulness as they progress through each academic grade. We aim to start from connections with people, deepen the students’ involvement in society, nature, and the world, and foster their ability to express themselves, think, and put ideas into practice with humanity and hope.

Execution

We carried out exchange activities with the “Kaga silk dyeing” artists who live in our school district, and studied the ideas and ways of living expressed in traditional crafts and the current state of demand for the crafts. Based on that study, we introduced Kanazawa through our exchange school in Taiwan and teleconferencing. Furthermore, we participated in Japan Art Mile (http://www.artmile.jp/), created a mural, and sent it to Taiwan.

Student grades involved

Sixth graders

Number of students involved

48

Schedule

2010

November:

We invited the “Kaga silk dyeing” artists as instructors and listened to their lecturesWe commenced exchanges with the exchange school in Taiwan and the teleconferencing system

December:

We used e-mail to deepen exchanges with the exchange schoolWe created the muralWe wrote letters to our exchange partners, and sent them together with the completed mural

2011

January:

We studied about China, Taiwan, etc. and each individual student wrote a reportThe students summarized and reflected on what they themselves had learned from their previous study

Comment from the teacher in charge

I felt that the fact that the exchange activity called “Let’s promote the Kanazawa of which we are proud” became something that remained in a visible way, namely the mural, was extremely effective for the elementary school students.